Both concert organisers and protesters felt like winners after the Daniel Zamir concert that was held at Wits University last night.

Muhammed Desai, coordinator of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) South Africa, said the protest had been effective because they were able to make those attending the concert “uncomfortable”.

“I am an alumnus of this university, they are the ones that are outsiders here, and we want them to feel like outsiders,” said Desai

“You have blood on your hands.You think you can use our university to cleanse your image.”He said because the organisers had to send out an urgent message to those attending the concert to tell them how to get in, which entrances to use and which to avoid is also a sign of victory – “already it shows that they are tense and they are stressed because SA is becoming so difficult for pro-Israeli organisations to operate [in].”

But the organisers also felt that the night was a success. The concert was held as the university’s way of making up for the one that was disrupted in March. The president of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), Zev Krengel said Wits had lived up to its promise. : “The team was great. I could not fault Wits in anyway.”

Krengel said the protesters were peaceful apart from the group that moved into the corridor and which he described as aggressive. At first the protesters were singing softly but as the night went on they sang and chanted loudly. The protesters confronted and provoked those who came for the concert.

“You have the blood of Palestine children on your jersey,” shouted a protester to a woman who was walking in to the concert area.

“ You have blood on your hands. You think you can use our university to cleanse your image,” said another protester.

Most of the people there to attend the concert passed by the protesters quickly pretending not to notice anything but not all of them. Some passed by the protesters holding up Israel scarves and flags.

“Fuck you!” said a concert attendee to a protester. “Wits University is my University, I have two degrees Wits,” said another person attending the concert replying to a protester who had shouted that they were not welcomed at Wits. Another one gave the protesters the middle finger. Some had to be subdued by those walking with them.

At some point the protesters threw papers at concert attendees as they arrived. They also sang, “dubula i-juda” (“shoot the Jew”), and chanted “there is no such thing as Israel” and “Israel apartheid” as the concert attendees were coming in.

Desai said many African people in South Africa when using the word “Jews” meant it in the same way they would have during the eighties. “Just like you would say kill the Boer at funeral during the eighties it wasn’t about killing white people, it was used as a way of identifying with the apartheid regime”.

He said there was no evidence of Jews being harmed because of anti-Semitic impulses, – “the whole idea anti-Semitism is blown out of proportion”. He said if there were anti-Semitic sentiments they would flatly challenge it even if it came from within their protest.

Bring together a Palestine musician and an Israeli one.

He said there a peaceful process going on and South Africans had to encourage that.

Ari Kruger, who attended the concert said the the term “apartheid” freely used just to evoke enthusiasm and sensitivity among South Africans: “Look at their supporters, the Cosatu guys, I’ve spoken to them on many occasions, they actually don’t have the facts, they are being told, ‘come to the function, apartheid, free Palestine, South Africa’s history is Palestinian reality’ which is actually not true.”

Krengel challenged the BDS and Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) to have a joint concert with them, to “bring together a Palestine musician and an Israeli one.”

Dr Shireen Ally, a Wits lecturer who was part of a group that represented Wits staff and students, said the university refused them the right to have a silent protest and move into the Great Hall foyer.

Ally said they would be seeking legal advice because the university had “infringed” on their rights to protest.

Deputy vice-chancellor, Prof Tawana Kupe said the university had given permission for a silent protest, just not permission to be in the foyer which the protesters had not asked for anyway.

[…] A concert at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa featuring Israeli saxophonist Daniel Zamir turned ugly Wednesday night when members of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) group began to sing, “dubula e juda” (“shoot the Jew”) as concert attendees were entering the music hall,according to Wits Vuvuzela, a paper affiliated with the university. […]

[…] The call to kill Jews was “just like you would say kill the Boer at [a] funeral during the eighties [and] it wasn’t about killing white people, it was used as a way of identifying with the apartheid regime,” Desai told the Wits Vuvuzela. […]

[…] The call to kill Jews was “just like you would say kill the Boer at [a] funeral during the eighties [and] it wasn’t about killing white people, it was used as a way of identifying with the apartheid regime,” Desai told the Wits Vuvuzela. […]

[…] The call to kill Jews was “just like you would say kill the Boer at [a] funeral during the eighties [and] it wasn’t about killing white people, it was used as a way of identifying with the apartheid regime,” Desai told the Wits Vuvuzela. […]

[…] The call to kill Jews was “just like you would say kill the Boer at [a] funeral during the eighties [and] it wasn’t about killing white people, it was used as a way of identifying with the apartheid regime,” Desai told the Wits Vuvuzela. […]

[…] The call to kill Jews was “just like you would say kill the Boer at [a] funeral during the eighties [and] it wasn’t about killing white people, it was used as a way of identifying with the apartheid regime,” Desai told the Wits Vuvuzela. […]

[…] The call to kill Jews was “just like you would say kill the Boer at [a] funeral during the eighties [and] it wasn’t about killing white people, it was used as a way of identifying with the apartheid regime,” Desai told the Wits Vuvuzela. […]

As we published an audio clip indicating the singing of a song that is problematic in order to show what views are held by some, so we have published comments which demonstrate the views held by some others.

Dear moderator, this is not a sufficient justification for allowing the string of racist comments that have been allowed on this board. Your publication of the clip was the reporting on an event and therefore coverage of what happened. Allowing inflammatory and racist responses to the newsworthy event is irresponsible. Allowing one set of racist comments to air in response to a news event that included racist comments cannot be justified as merely ‘balancing’ racist speech. Please, allowing commentators to call Africans ‘sub-human’ is poor judgement on the part of a moderator.

Dear moderator, this string from Robert, shay and NT is inappropriate…with Robert implying that the failure of “Africans” to “help themselves” is “tantamount to murder,” shay making an inflammatory and defamatory comment about ‘jews not being welcome in south africa,’ and NT ‘agreeing with the previous comment’ that likens “Africans” to “sub-humans” who will ‘beg’ for “jews” to return to South Africa. Free and open expression is vital in a democracy, but on a moderated comments board, these comments are irresponsible and inappropriate.

Lindsay dont be so naive to think there is a difference between BDS and anti antisemitism, they are one and the same. Please see me comment above – I will re post it here for simplicity sake. Please attempt a response

Just on BDS:
Universities invest in a wide array of companies that have operations all over the world, including many that systematically violate human rights of millions of people. And these countries are not defending themselves against those who would destroy them and specifically target their civilians in their attacks. BDS focuses only on the Jewish State, to the exclusion of all others, including those by which any reasonable standard are actually among the worst human rights violators. BDS I challenge you to name any other Arab or Muslim country that is comparable to the Israeli Supreme Court. Israeli Arabs sit in the Knesset; serve on the Israeli Supreme Court. Are you aware that it was an arab judge that sentenced the Israels previous president to jail !

Dear Gidon, your suggestions that a critique of Israel ( and a call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against it) is anti-semitic, is not a very credible argument. Archbishop Desmond Tutu considers Israel an “apartheid state” and has supported the call for BDS. The Archbishop is neither politically misinformed, naive, nor anti-semitic. In the 1980s, those who campaigned for BDS against apartheid South Africa did not call for BDS against all states engaged in human rights violations at that time. There were black parliamentarians in the House of Representatives in the 1980s, and there were black judges (!) in apartheid courts in South Africa in the 1980s. This did not make the critique of apartheid in South Africa illegitimate, and neither does the existence of Arabs in the Israeli parliament, as judges, or the fact that there are other states guilty of human rights violations an argument against the politics of BDS against Israel, nor an argument for the politics of BDS – by virtue of being a critique of Israel – anti-semitic. Any such argument reflects a wilful ignorance about the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s.

Via Dr Kelly Gillespie (Dept of Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand):

“As part of the organising team for the protest at Wits University this past Wednesday night at the Daniel Zamir concert, we read with dismay the reports about anti-Semitic comments made during the protest. It would appear from the Vuvuzela report on the event that one or more of the protesters used the phrase ‘shoot the Jew’ during singing at the protest. If this phrase, or any other anti-Semitic comment, was used during the protest, we categorically distance ourselves from any such statements.

It would appear that the comment was made in one smaller group of the protest that split off from the main group in order to occupy another entrance to the concert venue. Where we were located on the Great Hall steps, we witnessed no anti-Semitic messaging. In fact, when speeches were made on the Great Hall steps, they explicitly distanced the protest from anti-Semitism, arguing that the protest did not take issue with Jews but with Zionism and the occupation of Palestine. Although members of the public are right to call the protest to account for anti-Semitic comments, we would insist that it is sensationalist to ignore the major message of the protest – a principled stand against Israeli actions in Palestine – and focus on one minor actor in the protest.

We did not ourselves witness the anti-Semitic comments that reportedly occurred at Wednesday night’s protest. Neither did the majority of the protesters. If we had, we most certainly would have engaged those responsible and requested that such comments be retracted. We maintain a principled position that is against both anti-Semitism and Zionism, and we ally ourselves to the international BDS movement precisely on those grounds.

Independent observers from ASAWU and the Academic Freedom Committee at Wits were present at the protest and can be invited to confirm this statement.

Who are you kidding? Muhammed Desai is bragging about the anti-Semitism, and he was the coordinator. If you wanted the message to be something else, you don’t sing “Shoot the Jews”. You don’t even sing “Kill the Zionists,” whenever a Jew walks in. Otherwise, you get condemned and hopefully arrested for inciting violence, just like the singers of “Shoot the Boers” in 2011.

Excellent reporting, I attended the concert, I know the BDS member above, I have a Wits degree, I fail to see why he thinks he deserves he to stop me from entering the university I graduated from to attend an event organised by the university. Amazing dodging and manoeuvring to try and justify sentiments to shoot the jew, good on you Desai.

How is ‘shoot the jew’ not racist rhetoric? It is blatant anti-Semitism. If people are blowing anti-Semitism out of proportion then they are blowing apartheid out of proportion too. Have people forgotten about the Holocaust??

This was not a political event, but merely a showcase of musical talent. These protesters don’t seem to worry much about the innocent children killed by chemical weapons in Syria by their own government…

When I asked a friend of mine who lectures at Wits why no mention is made of Syria and the atrocities perpetrated there, her reply was that this would presuppose that the students knew where, or cared what Syria was about. By and large, her take is that many, if not most, despite being university students, are largely ignorant of what is happening, and are simply hopping onto the “radical band-wagon”. It is fashionable to brand Israel as an apartheid state. If one can get behind the bluster long enough to ask some salient questions, apparently, the ignorance is astounding.

Just on BDS:
Universities invest in a wide array of companies that have operations all over the world, including many that systematically violate human rights of millions of people. And these countries are not defending themselves against those who would destroy them and specifically target their civilians in their attacks. BDS focuses only on the Jewish State, to the exclusion of all others, including those by which any reasonable standard are actually among the worst human rights violators. BDS I challenge you to name any other Arab or Muslim country that is comparable to the Israeli Supreme Court. Israeli Arabs sit in the Knesset; serve on the Israeli Supreme Court. Are you aware that it was an arab judge that sentenced the Israels previous president to jail !